Saturday, August 05, 2006

Court Time

It only took 13 months, but I have finally found a reason to wake up before 10am on a Saturday morning.

Tennis!!!

Amy and I have been making an effort to get out and do exercisey things more often, including biking and throwing a softball and frisbee around on the National Mall. We've also gone on the hunt for tennis courts in the District that we could get to without car (please write to your Senator and Congress-person to encourage the construction of a court or two on the Mall), and discovered that there are plenty within walking, biking and metroing distance. At one such court we noticed a flyer for a tennis league that was just getting underway.

Of course I began reminiscing about my days of high school tennis glory. Starting out as a scrub freshman year during our school's inaugural season, I worked my way up to slide into the sixth and final slot on the varsity squad by the time I became an upperclassman. The highlight my senior year was making it to the sub-state round as a team, which my doubles-partner and I contributed to by winning our first match in districts before getting trounced by the eventual state champs from Oelwein in the second round.

With a little encouragement from Amy, I decided to jump in and sign up for the league. With my time somewhat tight and unpredictable at work, I realized that weekends would be my best time to play matches, and with the recent heat wave, mornings and evenings would be the most comfortable. The result being my first match this morning at 10am. Yes, I actually got out of bed on a Saturday while the hour-hand was pointing at a single-digit number that was not followed by "PM"!

It felt great to get the first game in, and I'm looking forward to the rest of this season and the beginning of the next. Feel free to follow my progress and live vicariously through my match scores by checking the excellent web site. I'm currently playing in the "Men's Sum. #2 Comp. A" league, Nalbandian division.

Little known fact: Adam has not smashed a tennis racket to pieces out of frustration at his own poor play since 1995.